London pre-open: Stocks seen touch higher as Trump inauguration eyed
Stocks in London were set to kick the session off just a touch higher on Friday, as investors look to the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump later in the day.
The FTSE 100 was called to open nine points higher than Thursday’s close at 7,217.
CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson said: “One thing that has become increasingly obvious is that the new President isn’t afraid to air what’s on his mind as a number of company CEO’s have found out in the past few weeks, coming under fire from his Twitter account as Mr Trump looks to hit the ground running.
“This is likely to make his inauguration speech required listening, given how last week’s press conference shed little detail on what to expect with respect to additional details on policy. The tone of it is also likely to be important in the context of how Presidential he sounds. Will he be inclusive in the manner of his speech of November 9th or will it be more of the same?”
UK retail sales figures are at 0930 GMT and Trump’s inauguration is at 1700 GMT.
Investors will also be digesting the latest economic growth figures out of China, which showed GDP expanded 6.8% on the year in the fourth quarter of 2016. This was ahead of the 6.7% forecasts by economists.
For 2016 as a whole, the economy grew 6.7%, within the government’s 6.5% to 7% target but marking the weakest growth in 26 years.
In corporate news, Synthomer issued a trading update for the year to 31 December on Friday, saying the positive trends experienced in its Europe and North America business during the first three quarters of the year continued through Q4, leading to an overall performance ahead of original expectations.
“We saw better than expected results across all business segments and further benefits from the ongoing focus on efficiency, new product initiatives, a strengthened procurement function and investment in business development activities,” the FTSE 250 company’s board said.
Chilean copper miner Antofagasta is to exit the Alto Maipo hydroelectric power project, by selling its 40% stake to partner, AES Gener, due to an expected overrun of costs.
The FTSE 100 company said that following a review it decided that its subsidiary, Minera Los Pelambres, will leave the $2bn project after cost were projected to overrun between 10-20%.